Tag Archives: cell phones

Biological Diversity at Risk From Wireless Radiation

An international team of conservation scientists and ecologists has listed wireless radiation as one of the top emerging issues that could threaten global biological diversity in coming years.

In its ninth annual “horizon scan” to identify emerging issues affecting biological diversity, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative listed electromagnetic radiation from 5G technology as one of 15 top emerging issues to potentially threaten wildlife. The 15 issues were selected from a list of 117 possible candidates. The Cambridge Conservation Initiative is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The “2018 Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biological Diversity” was published in the January 2018 issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 3, No. 1.

“Our aim is to highlight systematically both risks and opportunities to the conservation of biological diversity that are not widely known by conservation scientists and decision makers,” writes lead author William Sutherland. “Horizon scanning can help reduce the degree for conservation biology to be a crisis discipline.”

The entry for Electromagnetic Radiation in the article is printed in its entirety below:

Potential Effects on Wildlife of Increases in Electromagnetic Radiation

Understanding the potential effects of nonionising radiation on wildlife could become more relevant with the expected adoption of new mobile network technology (5G), which could connect 100 billion devices by 2025. During use, mobile telephones and other smart devices generate radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), a form of nonionising radiation, which may change biological processes such as neurotransmitter functions, cellular metabolism, and gene and protein expression in certain types of cells, even at low intensities [82]. The notion of risk to human health remains controversial, but there is limited evidence of increased tumour risk in animals [83]. 5G uses the largely untapped bandwidth of the millimetre wave-length, between 30 and 300 GHz on the radio spectrum, which uses smaller base stations than current wireless technology. As a result, wireless antennae may be placed densely throughout neighbourhoods on infrastructure such as lamp posts, utility poles, and buildings. This could expose wildlife to more near-field radiation. Although some studies reported negative associations between electromagnetic field strength (radiofrequencies and microwaves: 1 MHz-3 GHz range) and species, for example the density and abundance of house sparrows ( Passer domesticus ) [84,85], these studies have not yielded clear empirical evidence that the observed effects are due to RF-EMFs. The potential effects of RF-EMFs on most taxonomic groups, including migratory birds, bats, and bees, are largely unknown. The evidence to inform the development of exposure guidelines for 5G technology is limited, raising the possibility of unintended biological consequences [86].

Watch this 2 ½ minute video featuring Live Blood Analysis done before and after exposure to Electromagnetic Radiation, with Dr. Magda Havas of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.

Dr. Havas examines her own blood under a microscope three times over a three-hour period on August 20, 2009.

In the first examination, she was in an environment with no significant electromagnetic radiation. She found that her red blood cells were round, some were separate and some were sticking to others. This is healthy-looking blood.

The second examination was done after she had spent 70 minutes working on a computer. The majority of her red blood cells were now sticking together like long stacks of coins—an appearance known as “Rouleaux Formation”.

The third examination was done after she had used a cordless phone for 10 minutes. There were now no separate cells. All were organized into Rouleaux Formation, and the separate “stacks of coins” seemed themselves to be stuck to one another. This is what doctors see in cancer patients.

The clumping of red blood cells into Rouleaux Formation interferes with the delivery of oxygen and the removal of waste products like carbon dioxide. It also results in poor circulation since capillaries are often just wide enough for a single red blood cell to squeeze through at a time.

Consequently, some of the symptoms a person may experience if their red blood cells are locked in Rouleaux Formation are:

On June 12, 2013, Ami Living published a 10-page article on electrosensitivity written by Racheli Sofer and titled: “Are You Allergic to Your Cell Phone? EHS sufferers tell their stories of escape from modern civilization in order to survive.”

With sketchpad in hand, Jordan Weiss walks out his back door and perches on a rocky bluff overlooking the Juan de Fuca Strait and the forested shores of the Olympic Peninsula beyond. The only sound as he works is the occasional rustle of dry grass and the shushing of his pencil across the pad.

For many, the tranquil and unhurried life here in rural East Sooke on southern Vancouver Island would be a dream come true. But for a teenager who is here by necessity, this paradise can also be a prison.

The reason for Jordan’s isolation is his extreme sensitivity to wireless radiation. Exposure to wi-fi, cell towers, and even cell phones causes a range of physical maladies for Jordan as well as horrifying “night terrors”—a form of sleep-walking that can result in serious injury, and has on more than one occasion.

In 2012, Jordan’s parents uprooted the family from their Cadboro Bay neighbourhood near University of Victoria and purchased the remote house and 3-acre parcel in East Sooke in a desperate bid to escape wireless radiation and give Jordan a chance to live a healthy life. (Jordan’s mother is also electrosensitive, but his father and older brother are not.)

After much looking at rural properties within commuting distance of Victoria where both parents still work, the family found an area in East Sooke that, because of landscape configuration, offered little or no cell phone reception. A handful of houses are located on that strip of land. One of those houses was for sale.

(Interestingly, another of these properties belongs to a building biologist who bought there for the same reason—to reduce exposure to ambient wireless radiation. At the rate electrosensitivity is increasing in the population, one can only wonder how many years it will be before “No cell phone reception” becomes a coveted selling feature for real estate.)

“Moving out here is not the complete answer,” Jordan tells me. “It’s a good start. But, as a teenager, I still can’t go out there and do the stuff I want to do.”

Most teenage activities are in wi-fi’ed locations—whether it’s a café, school, rec centre, or private home. Nor are teenagers inclined to turn off their cell phones when asked.

“They make fun of me,” Jordan says of his attempts to ask friends to shut off their phones. “They don’t want to say it, but they think it’s all in my head. I want to be around people who love me for who I am and are not always on their cell phones.”

Jordan’s electrosensitivity first manifest when he was 11, soon after he got orthodontic braces. (This is an increasingly common scenario for many electrosensitive children due to wi-fi in schools. Metal dental braces literally become an antenna, drawing ambient radiation into a child’s head.) Jordan began experiencing blistering headaches, nausea, clumsiness, weak legs, inability to focus or retain information, and severe exhaustion.

His mother Karen believes the underlying trigger for Jordan’s electrosensitivity may reach as far back as pre-school when his daycare for two years of his life was across the street from a cell tower.

Jordan’s symptoms swelled to crisis proportions when the family renovated their former home and installed wi-fi and cordless DECT 6.0 phones throughout, including beside Jordan’s bed. He felt awful at friends’ homes with wi-fi, and felt great when sleeping over at friends’ homes without wi-fi.

After much research, investigation, and visits to doctors and sleep clinics, Jordan’s parents finally identified the cause of his problems: wireless radiation. They removed the wi-fi and cordless phones from their home, and Jordan immediately improved—at least for his hours spent at home.

“It’s like being allergic to society.”

“When we first figured out what was wrong, we were relieved,” Jordan’s mother Karen recalls. “At last we had an answer. But then we thought about what it means—it’s like being allergic to society.”

The move to East Sooke has virtually put an end to the harrowing and dangerous night terrors. Yet every foray out into the world to attend an art class or social gathering or a meeting of the local mountain bike club risks a re-appearance of symptoms due to ubiquitous wireless radiation.

“It is really a life-altering issue that adds an entirely new dimension to almost every decision Jordan makes,” Karen says.

Jordan is a young man of many talents. He cooks us a scrumptious omelette made with his special sauce, then sits on the sofa and plays the Djembe (an African drum) with gusto. He tells me he would someday like to create graphic novels and design video games. A display case in the hall holds an impressive sampling of his sculptural works and other art.

Yet with electrosensitivity dictating where he can and cannot go, limiting his training opportunities as well as social interaction and future workplaces, Jordan faces more challenges than most young people in discovering his path through this world and how to ply his talents in it.

In earlier years, he had wanted to be an architect. But now, the prospect of spending years at university—awash as they all are in wi-fi, cell towers, cell phones, iPads, laptops, and myriad other wireless devices—seems out of reach.

Last winter, Jordan was training to be a ski instructor at Mount Washington on Vancouver Island. But the presence of a cell tower, plus the radios they all had to carry, nixed that plan.

Most people, if asked to describe their ideal life, would talk about getting a piece of land, or finding that special someone, or having the time and money to write novels, or just kicking back in a thatched palapa on a tropical beach.

When I ask Jordan what his ideal life would be, he immediately replies: “A life without pain or sickness.”

And to a large degree, that is what he now has at his new home in East Sooke. His special refuge is rugged East Sooke Park, located just below his home. He visits it frequently with his Australian shepherd, Keisha.

“I have always been drawn to flowing water,” Jordan tells me. “There’s one spot I hike to at East Sooke Park with Keisha—it’s overlooking a chasm. There’s water crashing all around me, and I just lie there until Keisha wanders off and I have to go get her.”

Media Release – April 17, 2013

Nanaimo author Kim Goldberg has been awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to write a book about people who are physically sickened by their exposure to wireless technology.

“I was thrilled to learn that this project will be supported,” says Goldberg, who holds a degree in biology and has no wireless devices in her own home. “It will require a huge amount of time and work because the problem is literally global in scope.”

Goldberg says people are already contacting her with their stories of debilitating illness, job loss, critically sick children in Wi-Fi’ed classrooms, relocation to remote settings, sleeping in homemade Faraday cages—all due to their exposure to some form of electromagnetic radiation, usually wireless.

“Where do you go when an invisible matrix spanning the globe is making you sick?” Goldberg asks.

“I have been shocked by the number and intensity of the stories flooding in to me. We seem to be witnessing a growing electroplague,” she says. “I think these electro-sensitive people, and the special sanctuaries cropping up around the world to keep them safe, may be harbingers of a future we are all hurtling toward.”

Goldberg maintains that Canada and the United States lag far behind Europe in recognizing the risks and protecting the public from constant exposure to wireless transmissions from cell phones and towers, Internet Wi-Fi and other sources.

“In England, many people afflicted with electro-sensitivity were first diagnosed by their own doctors,” says Goldberg. “Here in Canada, you would be hard-pressed to find a doctor who even believes electro-sensitivity is medically valid, let alone knows how to diagnose it.”

Goldberg has written extensively on environmental topics for newspapers and magazines in Canada and abroad. She is the author of four nonfiction books and two collections of poetry.

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re·fu·gi·um—An area that has escaped changes occurring elsewhere, thereby providing suitable habitat in which organisms can survive through a period of unfavorable conditions. [from Latin refugium, from refugere to flee away, from re- + fugere to escape]

Kim Goldberg is an award-winning writer in Nanaimo, British Columbia. She is the author of six books and more than 2,000 articles. Kim holds a degree in Biology from University of Oregon and is an avid birdwatcher and nature lover. Read more about Kim here. Email: goldberg@ncf.ca